2007 Birthday Wrap-Up.

Well, I survived.

Despite the alcohol
Despite the beating
Despite Destiny the Strippers attempt to smother me with her great big boobs, I survived another birthday.

Here's the tale of the tape, followed by a photoblog, with pics taken on the night of. I'll keep the captioning to a minimum and let the pics speak for themselves.

The Cold Hard Facts:
Left the house at 6:40pm.
Dinner at Leona's at 7pm.
Walked over to The Town Hall at 9pm.
DJ Rich Cole was already there, laying down funk and soul tracks, all night long.
3 Cape Cods (vodka & cranberry), 4 shots of chilled vodka later.
Savagely Beaten by a Dominatrix at 11pm.
Walked to the PG to perform at the Rene benefit at midnight.
Walked back to the Town Hall at 12:30am.
Drank 2 more Cape Cods and did another 4 - 5 shots.
Hugged every girl that came within arms length of me.
Took pictures with tons of people.
Yanked out of the Town Hall at 2:45am, shoved in a cab and driven to the Admiral Theater with Joe and Hendo.
Lead away from the VIP table by Destiny (the same stripper that danced for me the LAST time that I was there), to a private booth where she proceeded to show me the benefits of tanning, a proper exercise regiment, stretching before physical activity and her years of extensive gymnastics training. She also spanked herself, although not as hard as the Dominatrix spanked me.
The Admiral Theater closed down at 4am and we three piled into a cab and drove to the Golden Nugget on Lawrence for breakfast.
Cabbed home with Joe at 4:40am.
Walked the dog.
Slept until 1:30pm, Sunday.
Woke up hung over and bruised on my entire ass area.

Now then, here's the pics.

A Visit From An Old Friend.
My good friend from college, Wade, made the trip in from Louisville to spend my birthday with me. It was really, really wonderful having him here. On Friday, we saw "Borat" together at the Vic. I showed him some of the sights of the city. He got to sleep in and enjoy a mini-vacation. And when the birthday shenanigans began, he was always there, in the middle of the conversation. Wade's no wall-flower.
It was grand having him here. I liked having him meet all of my friends. And they took to him like Peas and Honey.
This is my good buddy, Wade. (You'll see more of him later.)



Dinner at Leona's.
These good folks caught dinner with me, early in the evening, at Leona's.


Hendo, the Master of Disaster.
When I met him at the restaurant, he said, "We're going to make this a birthday to remember." And he wasn't kidding. At the bar, Hendo made sure that my glass was always full. If someone was looking for me, he pointed them my way. He took pics of me with other people. And when I got too busy to notice the call time for my show, it was Hendo who got my attention. While I was at the show, he met guests who arrived and told them where I was and took care of them. It was Hendo who propositioned the dominatrix. And it was Hendo who took the pictures. It was Hendo who sped us off to The Admiral Theater and it was Hendo who bought us late night breakfast.
His entire philosophy on that night was, "Don't worry. I've got it all taken care of." and he wasn't kidding. You couldn't ask for a better friend.
Enough dick-suckery, back to the pics.


Wade and Joe.
Joe is my roommate. And he and Hendo tag-teamed the whole event. As much as Hendo had my back, so to, did Joe. Joe paid for countless shots. And bankrolled the Deejay. And was right there with me, cabbing off to the Admiral. Joe and I started the night together and ended it together.
A true friend.


Nick and Sinead.
You can't see it in the pic, but Sinead is eating dinner for two. She's due in March. Another Improv Superbaby!


Mr. Gilmour.
My writing partner and good friend.
(At the Playground, Ryan came up to me out of nowhere and handed me a book and said, "This is your birthday present. It's from my own library." It was one of the Horatio Hornblower books. I chuckled when he said it and I think for a second, he looked hurt. But I explained that I thought it was charming as Hell to give me one of his own books. That meant a lot to me. It was equivalent to saying, "Here. This thing means enough to me, to own, but I want you to have it too. So, I give you my own thing."
He's a good friend. I'm excited to see what we come up with in 2007.


Edison.
Another one of my dearest friends.
Edison surprised me with the First Season of "The Kids In the Hall" on DVD. We'd discussed it, ages ago, when he said that he had a spare copy. I offered to buy it off of him and we left it at that. It's a mark of his thoughtfulness that he remembered it and gave it to me for my birthday.
Edison is suffering a terrible cold, though. So he took off after dinner. But I was still very happy to see him there.

Later, at The Town Hall
I saw these people and did these things!






The Birthday Beating.
(as was recently posted on the Chin-board)

Okay, this is what will henceforth be known as The Birthday Beating, presented in blurry Hendo-Vision.


Okay, the lady on the left is the Dominatrix, Meg. Yes, she is wearing a wig. Why? In her words, "Because my hear is so dirty from a long day of spanking and beating men, that I didn't want to take the time to go home and wash it. So, I wore a wig, instead."
So now you know...


This is me, pre-Beating. I have foolishly given her my belt to "spank" me with. Note that I am also smiling and completely oblivious to what is about to happen. In fact...

...I am so unaware of what's going to happen to me, that I give an excited, naive "Thumbs Up" hand signal.

Later, I regret that "thumbs up" signal.

The Beating Begins.
Meg rips into me like someone has paid her to rub me out. The first whip crack from the belt hitting my meaty ass is so loud, that Rich, the deejay, stops playing music. He thinks that a gunshot has gone off.
The first blow hurt SO BAD, that I didn't feel it until the third or fourth one hit. And then they all came upon me,all at once.
Meg, the belt-wielding whipping lady, had also had a few drinks. So her aim was off. She hit me as low as the backs of my knees and as high as my lower back.

That is a genuine grimace of pain. I am just now realizing that this woman is going to beat me like a Runaway Slave.


Here, I am thinking, "Jesus Christ, this woman is beating this shit out of me. My ass is on fire!" You can even see the belt in the pic. Meg has chosen an upswing on this one and caught me below the buttocks, giving me total coverage. She clearly has done this before.

My "fight or flight" instinct has kicked in and my instinct is to "flight". I try to get away from Meg, but she has a pretty long reach with that whip. And she keeps grabbing me by the hips and pulling me back. Everything from the back, down to the my knees feels like it's been stripped entirely away. This is what Christ must've felt like during his torture at Roman hands. I try to think of what I could confess to her, to get it to stop.
Women in the bar cry out, "Stop it! You're hurting him!" And they were right.


A momentary reprieve, when Meg put down the belt and switches to her open palm. She grabbsme and pullsme back, since I am trying to get away again. She paddles me like a naughty child. WAP!WAP!WAP!WAP!WAP! So fast that the audience loses count for a second. It occurs to me that Meg never agreed to only give me 32 swats. She may just keep going until I pass out from the pain.
At one point, I yell "Jesus Christ! Work the left cheek, Meg. I think you've got the right one covered!" And so she did. WAP!WAP!WAP!WAP!WAP!
Hendo is laughing so hard that the camera is visibly shaken by the event.

The crowd counted the blows and on "And One More to GROW ON!" Meg reared back her fist all the way down to Gary, IN. and summoned forth a "Hail Mary" of a punch that punched me squar in the butthole. If I weren't wearing trousers, she would've gone in up to the elbow. All I could do was grimace and take it. My entire backside was engulfed in endless, undulating flames. A pain that I have never experienced. I grabbed the nearest chair and table and stood, stooped over like that until I could walk again. Each shuffled step was a fresh explosion of agony. I stood like this, for a very long time...



Eventually, someone handed me a shot and a cocktail. That helped to dull the pain. Meg came over later and said, "How was that?" I said, "I bow to your superior lashing skills. Please don't ever do that to me again." and she laughed and kissed my cheek and wandered off to crush some poor unsuspecting bastards testicles with her stilleto heel.

Later, Joe confessed that he laughed so hard at the beating, that he got dizzy and had to look away. He could tell from my expression that I didn't appreciate the situation that Hendo had gotten me into. And when the first few blows came down and I hopped around and yelped and tried to get away, Joe laughed harder than he had, in years. It was, without question, his favorite part of the night.

For me, The rest of the night was a blur.


My Friends Are All Bad-Asses!
In the course of the rest of the evening, for reasons I can't entirely explain, it became a running motif to take pictures of my friends, showing me their "Fightin' Faces!" You know, the face you make when you're going to take somebody down! Hard!
People were really into it. I have really expressive friends. And this is what they gave me, when asked to show me their "Fightin' Faces!"


"Noobs" gets it! Look how tough she looks!


Here's Wade, showing you Pop-Eye's Fightin'Face!


Justin is coming! And Hell's Coming With Him!


Beware of El Presidente!


Gilmour shows us the Slow Burn!


What can I say? Joe is a lover, not a fighter.


Dwyer isn't going to bother taking his cigarette out of his mouth to kick your ass!


You just bought a ticket to Dina's Gun Show, Mister! This is the Cannon Exhibit! Downstairs, you should check out her bazookas!


Justin Don't Wanna Fight! Nooooo way! No problem here, buddy!


Roger's Fightin' Face is bloody scary!


Whilst Harz's is too sweet to be intimidating.


Sayjal offers no resistance, but Swinko points out that her guns are loaded!


Nat proves that she's one tough chick too!


And her husband Kyle put on his best "Goin' Stabbin" face! Look out!


This pic of Brian, Noobs beau, is what started it all off. Believe it or not, this was him, smiling, when he got to the bar. I caught him transitioning from his "Hi Everybody" smile to his "Hey, Beer!" smile and the combination of the two is one scary, effed up picture.
Oddly enough, when I asked him later to show me his "Fightin' Face" again, this is what I got.

I think the boy's got his wires crossed or something.

One Golden Epilogue.
This was, without a doubt, the most fun that I've had out all year long. (Easy enough to say that, since the year was only twenty days in.) After we left the Town Hall and later, The Admiral Theater (sorry lads, no pictures allowed in there), Hendo, Joe and I ended up at the Golden Nugget on Lawrence for one last, late-night meal. We were all a little tipsy, yet, from the evenings libations. It was good to cap the night off with two of my best friends, in a comfortable place, swapping stories and gossiping. After a while, I just sat back and listened to Joe and Hendo talk and was just very grateful to have them there.
Later, when I thanked Hendo for a very memorable night and for being such a good friend to me, he said, "Ah Christ, now he's goin' all faggoty on me." We all three laughed at that and went to our separate cabs home. I walked in the door at nearly 5am and almost immediately fell asleep. The end of a very long, happy night.

I'll close this post with a Horrifying image that perfectly sums up the night. I present for your viewing pleasure...Hendo, The Master of Disaster in a little picture that I call, "Happy Birthday, Billy!"


And the people rejoiced...